


See you clearly next to me

by brynnmck



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Brienne finding her husband extremely swoonworthy, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Jaime and his big THAT'S MY WIFE energy, Post-Canon, Sorry Not Sorry, also I got Brienne into the bath again, because I basically want to wrap the entire world in a fluffy virus-resistant blanket right now, but we all know, even when she can't come right out and say it, lest he become insufferable, post-canon Tarth Times, way heavier on the comfort than the hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:34:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23673157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brynnmck/pseuds/brynnmck
Summary: After a terrifyingly educational day, Jaime has bathed, re-dressed, and is contemplating the ruin of his least-favorite jerkin when Podrick comes clattering through the door of his chamber."Ser Jaime," he gasps out, chest heaving, "Ser Brienne--my lady Evenstar--come quickly," and Jaime takes the corridor at a full-out run.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 83
Kudos: 363





	See you clearly next to me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PrettyThief](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrettyThief/gifts).



> I asked the very badass, very wonderful [PrettyThief](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrettyThief/pseuds/PrettyThief) to prompt me a little while back, and she requested hurt/comfort, and now, an embarrassingly long time later, I actually got something finished! There's sort of a loose grab bag of book and show canon here, and I completely stole Maester Creylen from PT's absolutely lovely [Look After You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21007070), which I highly recommend--in fact, I think of this fic as sort of an AU of that one, where they end up on Tarth instead of at Casterly Rock. Anyway, this is for PT, with love!
> 
> Thank you to SD Wolfpup for her usual excellent beta services; any remaining mistakes are, of course, mine. Title taken from the Local Strangers' [Once Broken](https://thelocalstrangers.bandcamp.com/track/once-broken).
> 
> There is some discussion of canon-typical injuries here, but nothing too gory.

After a terrifyingly educational day, Jaime has bathed, re-dressed, and is contemplating the ruin of his least-favorite jerkin when Podrick comes clattering through the door of his chamber.

"Ser Jaime," he gasps out, chest heaving, "Ser Brienne--my lady Evenstar--come quickly," and Jaime takes the corridor at a full-out run.

When he finally reaches the walk that overlooks the main hall--it's a small island, why do they need a hall with so many bloody passageways?--his heart nearly leaps out of his chest when he sees Brienne standing framed by the late afternoon sun through the great doors, her armor stained with blood. 

"Jaime, I'm all right," she calls to him swiftly, holding up a hand, though he can see the effort it costs her to shout. Heedless of appropriate lordly composure, he barrels down the last of the steps and across the expanse of stone until he reaches her side. 

"Most of it's not mine," she tells him, low and urgent, as he starts running his hand over her, searching for injuries. Curse her for riding off without him, curse _him_ most of all for leaving her to face danger alone. They've been married for three moons now, and his days of merely praying for her safety are meant to be over--he's damn well supposed to _ensure_ it.

She catches his hand in hers, large fingers wrapping around his and squeezing. "Jaime." She grips until he looks up at her. "I'm all right. Thanks in no small part to this excellent armor that my lord husband gifted me for our wedding." 

Jaime has, to his eternal regret, seen her near-mortally wounded more than once, and it had been written plain in her smile every time. The one she gives him now is tired but sincere, truly _hers_ , and he leans up to rest his forehead against hers, trying to slow his galloping heart. 

"What do you need?" he asks her, half-hoping she'll ask for the moon so he can wrestle it out of the sky for her and put all this restless, helpless energy to good use.

"Just a bath, and the maester, I think," she tells him, and his heart stutters again. "Just to be cautious," she hastens to add.

"Podrick!" Jaime calls, but the boy--the young man, really, as difficult as that is to believe--is already hovering anxiously nearby. He may be a knight in his own right now, but they all know that when it matters most, he'll be Brienne's squire forever.

"I'll have them both sent to your chamber immediately, my lord," Podrick says, and gives them both an abortive bow before turning to carry out his mission.

"Podrick," says Brienne, and he spins back to her, his heart in his guileless eyes. "You did well today," she tells him warmly. "Very well. I was honored to fight beside you."

Podrick's stutter has faded with time, but Jaime can hear the echo of it when the whole of Podrick's round face goes red and he answers, "Th-thank you, my lady ser. It--it was my honor, t-too," before he bows again and dashes for the door. 

After Podrick has disappeared, Jaime offers his arm to Brienne, keenly aware of the various household staff who are bustling nearby. His lady likes to project as much reassuring strength as possible when they're in company, and now that his initial panic has passed, he'll assist her in that however he can.

"Thank you, my lord," she tells him, with real gratitude beneath the formal words. She places her arm and hand atop his with only a bit of extra pressure as they begin to make their way across the hall and up the stairs.

As soon as they're out of sight of the hall, though, she lists to the side, leaning more heavily against him.

"Brienne!" Alarmed, he wraps a careful arm around her; he's not sure where it's safe to touch her.

"It's fine," she says quickly. "It just hurts like a bastard, and I spent the whole way here pretending that it didn't."

The flash of dry humor is far more comforting than her repeated assurances; he's seen Brienne grind out "fine" between gritted teeth even with her own blood soaking multiple limbs, but if she can spare energy to jape with him, then she can't be too badly off. He's relieved enough that, paradoxically, he considers hauling her up into his arms--which he _is_ fully capable of doing, despite her protests to the contrary. He's never tried it when she's been in full armor, though, and their chambers are a bit far away for him to be indulging in experimentation now, so he takes as much of her weight as he can, bracing his hand on her hip. "All right?" he asks, to make sure he's not pressing anywhere painful.

She nods and lets her head drop sideways to rest against his; his heart contracts hard with how fiercely he wants to protect her, this woman who trusts him and him alone with her rare moments of weakness. He stumbles with her through the rest of the corridors and up the last flight of stairs until he can get her seated on the couch that faces the fireplace in their chambers, while he tries to convince his knees that they don't mind the cold stones beneath them.

"The pillows," she protests, frowning at the dried blood and dirt flaking onto the crescent- and lion-strewn pillow coverings, hand-embroidered by the Queen of the North. He waves his stump dismissively as he starts on the buckles of her armor with his left hand, moving with the confidence of long experience. After Brienne had knighted Podrick, Jaime had privately offered his services as her squire in the boy's stead. She'd told him blandly that squires needed to assist their knights in donning their armor as well as removing it, whereas Jaime seemed primarily interested in the latter.

He hadn't been able to argue the point.

"The pillows will wash," he says. "You're injured, wench; would you have me dump you on the floor like a sack of bricks so you don't bleed anywhere inconvenient?" She huffs and narrows her eyes at him in fond exasperation, but there's still a crease of worry to go with the pained ones between her eyebrows. Jaime sighs and pauses long enough to toss the pillows out of range before easing the pauldron and then the bracer off her left arm. 

"What happened?" he asks, unwinding the makeshift bandage that's wrapped around her biceps. Sure enough, there's a long gash on the underside of her arm, where her armor doesn't quite cover; not bleeding enough to worry him overmuch, but enough that the maester will likely want to see to it. Jaime wishes he could do the stitching himself--he'd been a fair hand at it, in his day, like he believed every good commander should be, and he'd always enjoyed people's surprise that the Kingslayer was capable of patching wounds in addition to opening them--but one hand and his teeth aren't exactly the best tools for such delicate work. 

"Bloody pirates," Brienne answers, wincing a little as he inspects the deeper part of the cut, which is still oozing blood. 

Jaime presses a brief apologetic kiss to her hand. "Pirates? I thought we ran them off." That had been an excellent day, standing next to her with steel in his smile while his lady calmly explained to the surrounded brigands that this island was under her protection, as well as her lord husband's, and that anyone wishing to threaten it would have a fight on their hands that they were very likely unprepared for.

"Apparently not all of them," she grumbles. "Someone came from the village early this afternoon, and said that some of them had turned up at the tavern. They'd been drinking since morning and were starting to make threats."

Both her arms are free now, and he carefully lifts the breastplate over her head, drinks in her tiny sigh of relief and watches the long line of her neck as she stretches out a kink. "So you, of course, galloped off to the rescue." Her sleeve is torn and bloody anyway, so he simply slices the rest of it open with his knife, then goes to the basin near the fire and dampens one of the clean cloths resting next to it.

"I didn't know when you'd be back," she says, apologetic. 

"A likely excuse," he sniffs as he seats himself next to her and starts swabbing the worst of the blood and dirt away from her wound. A good portion of his day had been spent observing the birth of a new calf at one of the nearby farms, which had involved, if he was honest, far more cow fluids than he had ever wanted to see or ever wanted to see again. But after some effort, he's managing to charm the people of the island--buoyed by his blatant devotion to their Evenstar--and he hadn't been about to refuse an invitation made in good faith. "I know you meant to keep all the glory for yourself. How many were there?"

Brienne's eyes, which had been rolling at his jest, skip suddenly to the side, and pink starts to creep high along her cheeks. Jaime raises an eyebrow.

"How many, Brienne?"

"Not… more than a dozen," she mutters, still not meeting his gaze, though he can see the corner of her mouth curling ever so slightly.

Faced with this latest evidence of her prowess, Jaime is, as ever, caught between the desire to lay waste to anyone who dares threaten her, and the desire to drag her to bed so that they can lay waste to each other. He settles for shaking his head and telling her, "Greedy as always, I see; I hope you let poor Podrick have at least a few of them," before leaning in to kiss her. It's less gentle than he means it to be, rough with relief, hot with the image of her in his mind: sun glinting off the new armor he'd wrapped her in, Oathkeeper singing in her hand, eyes alight with stubborn determination while her enemies fall around her like stalks of wheat. She kisses him back just as eagerly, thumbs caressing his bearded chin before she slides her hands back to twine into his curls, pulling just hard enough to make him hiss with pleasure.

"You're right, I _am_ feeling greedy," she tells him against his lips, and he laughs low, and--

From the doorway comes a very pointed clearing of someone's throat. "My lady. My lord. Forgive the intrusion."

Brienne pulls back immediately; Jaime takes a moment to sneak one last kiss to the spot beneath her ear--sweat and dirt notwithstanding--before turning a smile on the newcomer.

"Maester Creylen. Kindly put my lady knight back together so she can once again marshal her full strength in the service of her... duties." He lets his voice go heavy with innuendo on that last, and he's rewarded with a glare from Brienne and a long-suffering sigh from Creylen. Grinning, Jaime abandons his seat so that Creylen has room to work, but he drags a chair over on Brienne's other side and takes her free hand in his. 

While Creylen cleans and stitches the wound, Jaime regales his wife with lurid descriptions of the calf's birth that leave them both breathless with laughter, though Jaime blanches sympathetically every time Brienne grimaces at a particularly sharp stab of the needle. It doesn't matter that he's seen her weather far worse injuries in far less forgiving circumstances; he never likes being reminded that the steel at the core of her is wrapped in the same vulnerable flesh and bone that everyone else suffers under. 

More happily, the maids have started bringing hot water, so that by the time the last stitch is snipped, the large bathtub in the corner of the room is steaming and giving off the faint fragrance of lavender and chamomile.

"There," Creylen says as he ties off the clean bandage on Brienne's arm. "Now. Do try to keep yourself in one piece, my lady." He pats her wrist with the vaguely paternal fondness that had eventually won Jaime's trust despite his terrible history with maesters. 

"But then what would you do with your time?" Brienne asks him, smiling. 

"I'd still have this one to keep me plenty busy." Creylen jerks his head at Jaime, and Jaime laughs. After all his long years of choking on the smoke and subterfuge of King's Landing, he's found Tarth and its people to be as refreshingly forthright as the wind whipping in off the cliffs. Here, almost without exception, he knows where he stands.

"Thank you for your expertise." He claps Creylen on the arm. "Now get out so I can tend to my wife."

Creylen shakes his head, stands up, and levels a warning finger at him. "Kindly recall, my lord, that I know a hundred points on your body that can cause you pain. And if you undo any of my work here, don't think I won't use that knowledge."

"Do you hear this?" Jaime asks Brienne, who's fighting to keep her smile from becoming a grin. "A rebellion in our own house! A _revolt_! I am revolted!"

Having gathered up his tools, Creylen rests his hand on Jaime's shoulder and squeezes as he passes by. "Take good care of her, my lord, as I know you will," he murmurs.

Caught off-guard, Jaime blinks; another thing he's learning here is that sometimes the warm winds strike the hardest. "I will," he promises firmly, recovering himself enough to meet Creylen's kindly gaze. The first time he'd made that promise, he hadn't even realized--hadn't _let_ himself realize--that he was doing it. He's made it more and more deliberately in all the years since. "Tell Pod that she's all right, will you?" he adds, remembering the boy's anxious face.

Creylen's face creases with a smile, and he nods. "I will, my lord. Thank you."

After Creylen is gone, there's only Brienne, beaming quietly at him despite the fatigue that shadows her face. He kisses her hand again, then rises to his feet and gestures to the tub, along with a courtly bow and flourish that would make Loras Tyrell's curls tremble with envy, if Jaime says so himself. Which he unequivocally does. "Your bath, my lady." 

The lack of imminent death and betrayal over the past several moons has uncovered a vast store of pent-up wooing that Jaime can't seem to help fountaining in Brienne's direction at the slightest provocation, no matter how much Tyrion shakes his head at the unseemliness of courting one's own wife. There's a wry twist to her mouth now, but her skin flushes and her eyes glow with pleasure, and Jaime grins, well-rewarded. 

He helps her out of the rest of her armor and clothes, watches her sink into the water with a sound that's half-moan, half-sigh, carefully keeping her bandaged arm off to the side. He avails himself of a nearby footrest and settles in next to the tub.

"You're not joining me?" she asks, looking a bit disappointed. Which is temptation Jaime doesn't really need, given that his reaction to her in this state--the water shining on her skin, the hair at her temples curling slightly in the steam, her eyes exceptionally blue against the red of her cheeks--has only grown more fervent over time. It's enough to make him shift in his seat as he ponders it in somewhat vivid detail.

Still, the tub was only built for one, and though he's got a smith in the village working on an alternative, it's not near ready yet. "You know we'll both come out of that with bruises, and you have enough right now as it is," he says finally. Regretfully.

She wrinkles her nose and settles deeper into the tub. "I suppose you're right." Then, before he can make a clever remark about her admitting he's right for once, a sly grin stretches across her face. "Tell the truth: you're more worried about the bruises Pia might give you later than any damage we'd do tonight."

Jaime had considered that, in fairness; the last time they'd let temptation get the best of them, it had ended with massive puddles on the floor and a thorough tongue-lashing from Pia over all the work her maids would have to do to clean it up. She'd finished by threatening to send Jaime to the wildest part of the bay armed only with a mop and bucket if they ever tried it again. "She _has_ grown rather terrifying, hasn't she?" He couldn't be prouder of her.

"She has--thanks to you giving her a home and a place," Brienne says, reaching up to trail damp fingers along his jawline. _That_ invitation, he has no intention of resisting, so he leans in and kisses her, slow and certain, breathing in her contented little sigh.

There's nothing in Pia's edicts against him helping, at least, so when he's done with the kiss, he uses his chin to help hitch his sleeve up to his elbow, picks up the sponge, and sets to work. It's a ritual born out of their seemingly endless battle against the dead, when they'd stumble back behind the walls to rest for a few hours before dragging themselves back into the fray. More than once, they'd simply collapsed together into whichever of their beds was closest. Sometimes Podrick had wedged in with them like an overgrown pup, and sometimes it had been just the two of them, too exhausted to go on denying the need between them even if it remained unspoken. A few times, though, there had been water ready for them--tepid, of course, because most things in Winterfell could only barely even fucking aspire to warmth, hot springs or no--and they'd tended to each other like this: sluicing away grime and gore, greedy for the sight of as much whole skin as they could find. 

He's got a similar hunger now, though the water is blessedly hot and the fire is crackling on the hearth and her wounds are mostly splashes of mottled purple and red that will fade within a fortnight. Brienne makes a small humming noise as he finishes running the sponge over the endless expanse of her shoulders and slides it down the middle of her chest, through the small valley between her breasts, letting it come to rest on her stomach. Her hips tilt and she moves her feet closer to the end of the tub so her knees can fall a bit further open. He chuckles.

"Expecting something, wench?" He rests an elbow on the edge of the tub and props his chin on his stump, blinking innocently at her.

She narrows her eyes at him. "Did I mention that I fought a dozen pirates today?"

"Mmm." He nods, all solemnity. "And what greater reward could you ask for than the satisfaction of having defended the innocent, as I charged you to do?"

"I expect you to do your duty, ser," she says, her crisp consonants and high-minded tone an echo of their early days together, when he'd thought he'd go mad with the desire to crack open her armor to reach the vulnerable woman beneath. Of course, he'd been lying to himself about what he wanted to do when he got there, but he'd been right about the madness part, anyway. Very unlike those days, though, her eyes are laughing and warm, and the list of things he knows damned well he wants to do to her would take them from Riverrun to King's Landing several times over.

He inclines his head and gives her a grin. "As you command, my lady." 

But it wouldn't do for him to become predictable only a few moons into their marriage, so he releases the sponge and scoops up water to trickle over her blood-spattered hair instead. She makes an adorably frustrated noise--so _impatient_ for him, his wife; something deep in his chest purrs with satisfaction--and slides down to duck her head underneath the water. She comes up dripping, challenge written all over her face: _There. Done._

He just raises an eyebrow and reaches for the small bottle next to the tub: some hair-washing concoction from Pia that smells sweet and earthy and that Brienne pretends not to like as well as she does. _"I don't need anything special,"_ she protests every time, and then her eyelids flutter shut as she uncorks the bottle and inhales, and Pia rolls her eyes at Jaime while Brienne is distracted and keeps bringing new bottles.

Brienne's mulish expression brightens a little at the sight of it, and she helps him pour some into his hand. As he massages it slowly into her hair, digging his fingers in just enough to draw a quiet moan out of her, he watches the lines of all her glorious muscle begin to soften, curving and smoothing until she's resting against the back of the tub again. Like this, with her pale eyelashes fanned out over her freckles, she looks even younger than she truly is, and as innocent as she had been once. Somewhere out of the depths, he can feel the claws of his old demons starting to prick him-- _what would she want with you, short a hand and well past your prime besides, you don't deserve--_ so he doesn't even notice the change in her breathing until she opens those fathomless eyes and says, "Jaime, _please_ , I need you," and everything else falls away as he surges forward to kiss her.

Intent on his purpose now, he spares barely a moment to rinse her hair with a pitcher of clean water before he drags his stool closer to the tub so that he can hook his arm over her shoulder. "You were very brave today," he tells her, pressing his cheek against her scarred one. He slips his hand under the water and traces a circle around the bud of one of her breasts. Her back bows. "Do you know what your unceasing, bullheaded bravery does to me, Ser Brienne?" The words send a pleasant jolt straight to his groin. Of course he'd knighted her mostly because she was worthier of it than anyone he'd ever known, but in the back of his mind, there'd been the faint, foolish promise of someday being able to meet her on a field very much like this one. 

He's tilted with her with truly inspiring dedication and regularity through the turning of several moons, and it's proven to be every bit as stimulating as he could have hoped.

"Mmm," she manages, arching to try to get his fingers where she wants them. 

"I'll take that as a yes." Taking pity on her, he catches one plump, pink nipple between his thumb and forefinger and twists in the way he knows she likes. 

"Yes," she gasps, though she's certainly not answering his question. Then, as he follows the strong path of her neck with his lips, "Gods, Jaime, there were so many times I wanted so badly for you to touch me like this. Even at Winterfell, I wanted it more than I wanted sleep. And you know how much I wanted sleep." He laughs a little; it's not the first time she's told him that, but somehow he never minds hearing it. She reaches back and sinks wet fingers into his hair, pulling him closer.

"I burned for you," he whispers against her skin, his voice going ragged on the memory, his hand moving lower beneath the water. For his part, he's told her that half a dozen times, and still she shudders at the words. "I'd dream of you and wake up aching for you, even when you were next to me." 

"Jaime," she breathes, " _husband_ ," like she's making a vow all over again, and he groans and plunges two fingers into her. Her choked-off cry is sharp and delicious in his ear.

Inside, she's hotter and slipperier than the bathwater, and more welcoming, too. Her panting breaths are the sweetest music, matching the tempo of her hips as she thrusts up against his palm. When they speak of their past, it often ends like this: fast and hard and fervent, as if the force of their coupling now can somehow fill all of the empty, longing spaces between their former selves. There's gratitude in it, too, like those first giddy glimpses of freedom and fresh air he'd had at her side, like the fierce, feral hunger of a feast after moons of dry bread and stale water. He is hers now, and she is his, and so is each clench of her cunt around him, each sound he wrings out of her with the now-practiced motion of his one remaining hand. Each time his name falls from her lips, he tucks it away like a talisman, and when she shouts her release loud enough to be heard in the training yard far below their window, it's as great a commendation as winning any tourney.

While she's still trembling, she turns her head and kisses him, the angle awkward but her generous mouth more than enough to make up for it. He combs his fingers idly through the hair between her legs while she tips her head back against his shoulder. 

"Are you well?" he asks, though he prides himself that he already knows the answer. Maiden forgive him for craving the sound of her saying it. 

She hums a laugh into his skin and flexes her fingers where they're still tangled in his hair. "You know I am. Exceptionally well, in fact; Maester Creylen's poultices must have some new ingredient in them." She nuzzles closer, nose pressed beneath his jaw. "And you, my lord?" 

_I have my wife, who also happens to be the woman I love, naked and sated in my arms_ , he thinks, but that's not the game. "Uninjured in body, my lady," he says instead, "though a few of the sights I witnessed this morning might have done permanent damage to my spirit." 

She laughs again. "Poor Jaime. Perhaps if it had been a lion."

"Yes," he says, "I'm sure we come into the world with far more dignity." He thinks of Tyrion as a baby, red and wrinkled and squalling, and smiles with only a twinge of melancholy.

"Do you ever wish we'd gone there instead?" she says after a moment, fingertips tracing small patterns on his scalp. "Casterly, I mean."

It had been Jaime's to refuse. Tyrion hadn't pressed anything, for once, and Jaime had given careful consideration to his birthright, to the long-held wishes of his father that sometimes still feel carved on his very bones. But there were too many ghosts there, too many ashes. And besides, his Aunt Genna had been right: Tyrion was Tywin's true heir, though one of them had already gone to his grave before admitting it and the other one was just as likely to do the same. 

"I never truly wanted it for myself," he tells Brienne, and he feels her exhale softly, trying and failing to hide her relief. "Tyrion thrives on the intrigue, but I'm just as happy to have several leagues of violent seawater between me and whoever's trying to poison everybody else today." He presses his lips to her temple. "There's plenty of honor for my house in serving yours with honor. And anyone who'd like to dispute that is welcome to do so at the point of my sword."

"And mine," she agrees fiercely, staunch as ever, and this time his smile is only joy.

Without warning, she dislodges his arm and stands, skin rosy from the heat, the firelight reflecting off all the rivulets of water running down every long, powerful line of her. 

"Are you sure you're not injured?" he hears her ask, seemingly from somewhere very far away.

"Hmm?" Her cunt is right at his eye level; his mouth waters. A towel obscures his view, breaking the spell long enough for him to tear his gaze away to meet hers while he tries manfully not to pout. 

"I said," and her voice is low with amusement, "are you sure you're not injured, Ser Jaime?"

It's his third-favorite thing for her to call him, after _husband_ and the simple, hard-won intimacy of just the two syllables of his name in her mouth. Especially now that he's granted that last on a regular basis--sometimes in an exasperated tone, but often enough in an affectionate or, even better, a rapturous one--he holds that _Ser Jaime_ as close to his heart as he had the first time she'd used it in earnest, the way she'd wrapped up his tattered honor in her big hands and made him a gift of it. 

There's a smile tugging at the edges of her mouth as she scrubs the towel quickly over her hair. He smiles back at her, the lazy, predatory smile that always makes her eyes go a little darker. "Now that you mention it," he tells her, "I might have an ache or two somewhere." He juts his chin forward, stretches his neck from side to side, watches her lips part at the sight. "Difficult to tell exactly where, though."

She steps out of the bath, and he rises to his feet. "In that case," she says, still with the barest, most endearing hint of shock at her own boldness, "we should probably do a thorough examination." 

"That does seem to be the wisest course," he says, and her laugh bubbles into his mouth while her fingers start working the toggles on his jerkin. 

It's a particular delight, having all of her formidable concentration and efficiency focused on him, especially when it ends in him stripped to the skin and on his back on the bed while she straddles him. In the light from the open window, just starting to go golden, he can see the bruises standing out against her pale skin--her shoulder, one side of her ribs, her thigh--and frowns as he ghosts his fingers over the nearest of them. "I don't suppose you brought any of those men back with you? In the dungeon, perhaps?" he asks, keeping the growl at bay with some effort.

She smiles. "They were escorted back to their ship. Forcefully." She cups his cheek and looks him directly in the eyes. "I'm all right, Jaime. I swear it." 

"You could show some consideration and save at least _one_ for me next time," he grumbles, turning his head to kiss her palm. She chuckles.

"My apologies for my unseemly intemperance, ser. Now." She leans close to press her lips to his forehead, his cheekbone, his neck. "I believe you said something about an injury."

"Mmm." The urge for violence ebbs away with surprising ease, happy to be replaced by lust. "Yes, I think I've determined where it is now."

"Have you?" she murmurs, proceeding down to his chest.

"Yes. It's most definitely right between my--" He breaks off and sucks in a breath as she closes her teeth gently around his nipple.

He subsides after that, needing all his focus to bear the delicious torture of her mouth moving over his body with deliberate slowness. After a moment, he realizes there's a familiar pattern to it: she's kissing each of his scars, one by one, a benediction of lips and tongue. 

The first time she'd done that, in the heady days when he could barely be persuaded to let her out of his bed, it had brought his heart to his throat. He'd vastly preferred the bear pit to the terror that she'd suddenly see all his fractured pieces for what they were and abandon the project entirely. 

_"What's wrong?"_ she'd asked, as he'd nudged her away from him with a shaky laugh. Worry had flashed over her face; she'd still been so uncertain of him, of herself. _"Is that not--am I--"_ She'd touched a hand to the whorls on her own cheek, shoulders curling inward.

Cursing himself for a clumsy fool, he'd hastened to reassure her. _"Sweetling, believe me, there's no part of you I'm not desperate to have my mouth on."_ To prove it, he'd dragged his tongue along one of the lines the bear's claws had left over her collarbone. He'd almost been able to taste his own fear, the horror of having arrived too late and never holding her like this, never seeing her smile at him or standing back-to-back with her against a common foe. _"What's this one?"_ he'd asked, to distract them both, tracing his finger over a thin, pale mark on her forearm. That one had seemed safe enough, unlikely enough to have taken her from him. 

She'd flushed and given him a small, guilty smile. _"When Ser Goodwin refused to train me, I snuck into the armory for a practice sword. I wasn't quite sure of my own strength yet, and I…"_ She'd turned even deeper red. _"There was a rack of them, all stacked together, and I reached for one in the middle."_ Then, as he'd fought to contain his laughter, _"It was very loud."_

He had laughed then, like sunlight bursting out of his chest. _"Such humble beginnings for such a fearsome knight."_

She'd stuck her tongue out at him, and poked the small white circle just below his right shoulder. _"This one, then, Ser Jaime."_

Oh, she'd had to choose that one. _"Addam,"_ he'd been honor-bound to admit. _"Disarmed me twice in one day. More than thirty years ago, and he still crows about it whenever he gets the chance."_

They'd gone on like that for hours, asking one after the other, reading the history written more eloquently on each other's skin than in any White Book. Most of the stories weren't so lighthearted, and there were a few that they didn't speak of at all, save with soft touches and poorly-hidden tears: the wicked arch across her neck where she'd swung for him in defiance of Lady Stoneheart, the still-scarlet knot of tissue on his inner thigh from when he'd thrown himself into a crowd of wights that had pinned her down and she'd sobbed, afterward, as she'd tried desperately to stop the blood pouring onto the stones beneath him. But no matter what horrors he'd whispered to her--what failures, what regrets--she'd only held him closer, and by the time he'd finally rolled over her and sunk into her, he'd felt more whole than when he'd had two hands.

Now, he welcomes her touch on all the marks of his past, all the moments that could have ended him and have instead, impossibly, brought him here, with her. In deference to her injuries, he lets her set the pace, slow and relentless and exquisitely intent. The hum in his blood grows louder with every press of her lips. 

"Brienne," he says finally, agonized, when he thinks this might be his end, after all. She's working her way down his right arm and the curve of her arse is brushing his aching cock and it's taking everything he has not to just start rutting against her like an animal.

"I know," she says, and he's gratified to hear the strain in her voice, "I just--I need to know that--I need to feel--"

"That we're alive," he finishes for her, his chest tight with it, sliding his fingers into her still-damp hair. "I know, love. I know." She jerks a nod, and he clings to the edge of control just long enough for her to place a final, lingering kiss on the end of his stump. And then, her survey complete, she reaches back to line him up and drives herself down onto his cock with a groan.

She's slick and wet enough that he slides in to the hilt immediately, and for a moment he's blinded by it, the feel of her so overwhelming that one of his senses has to quit the field entirely to make room for the rest. As she starts to roll her hips, she leans down to kiss him. Her throaty moans pour into his mouth, a thousand times more potent than the finest wine. The same skills he's honed to catalogue an enemy's weaknesses also serve for memorizing the map of where he can touch her without hurting her: he kneads her breast, runs his stump over the lines of her ribs, grips the taut muscles of her arse to grind her harder against him.

"Jaime," she's panting, riding him in earnest now, "gods, Jaime, so good, yes." The lowering sun gilds the air around them and there's a breeze blowing in off the sea, and with her voice in his ears, her cunt clasping him close, her heart thundering against his, he's filled with a joy so fierce that it feels meant more for gods than mortals. 

"Take your pleasure, Brienne," he urges her. His own is close, throwing off sparks in his blood every time she drives him deeper inside her. "I want to see you reach your peak on my cock. I want to hear you. I want this whole damned island to hear you," and she laughs, half-sob, as she quickens her pace. She tends to blush both above and below when he says such things to her, which is more than enough enticement to say them as often as possible. But he's losing his hold on even that much now, losing the sense of his words while shocks sizzle at the base of his spine like a gathering storm. "Brienne," is all he can say, "Brienne, my wife, my lady knight, my heart, my love--" and then she's crying out above him, cunt fluttering around him. That's all the command he needs to follow her, to thrust up desperately into all that tight, wet heat until he pours everything he has right there into the core of her.

He gathers her close afterward, and folds all those ostentatiously long limbs into some semblance of order against his. The scent of her freshly-washed hair drifts into his nose. There's a dove that's nested in one of the cracks between the stones near their window, which had struck him as terribly romantic until he'd realized that the damned thing never shut up in the evenings, _too-whooo_ ing its way into his nightmares. He's debating the merits of finding it a lady dove to keep it distracted, or a lord dove, or maybe just a well-placed rock--not to kill, Brienne would never forgive him for that, but to _persuade_ \--when Brienne murmurs into his shoulder.

"I missed you today."

Immediately, he's flooded with guilt. "I'm sorry. I should have been with you. I should have--"

"Jaime." She pokes his ankle with her toe. "That's not what I meant. The people here have come to love you as I do, and that's entirely your doing, so you're going to have to live with the consequences. I only meant… I was on my own for so long, before. Thinking of you, hoping you were safe, wishing you were with me." She hitches a shoulder. "I've lost my tolerance for it, I suppose."

Despite all his improvements, she can still best him with a sword nine times out of ten, but the truth is that all she needs to sweep his feet from beneath him is the secret, boundless softness of her heart. He squeezes his eyes shut and holds her as tightly as he dares. _Always come back to me_ , he wants to make her promise, but she can't do that any more than he could swear the same to her, and _never ride into danger again without me at your side_ isn't any more reasonable. He'd used to think that love was not knowing where he ended and someone else began, and now he thinks that it's an invisible rope that binds his heart to hers, one that can stretch over leagues and years and battle lines and never break.

"You know as well as I do that there's no way to be certain what the next bend in the road might hold," he says finally. "But I'll swear this oath to you: when I can fight at your side, I will. When I can welcome you home, I will. And wherever you go, know that my heart goes with you."

For a long moment, she doesn't answer, and he thinks perhaps she's fallen asleep. Then a small, warm, wet drop falls on his shoulder, and she gives a loud sniffle. "Do you think it's too late to change our marriage vows?" she asks, and then she cups his jaw in her hand and kisses him, long and sweet; he can taste her answering promises on her tongue.

When she's settled next to him again, he's savoring the last few moments again in his mind, poring over the details, when something occurs to him. "Not _exactly_ as you do, I hope."

He can feel her sigh almost throughout the length of his body. "Why do I have such an overwhelming sense that I don't want to ask what you're speaking of? And yet."

"Our people," he says, and it strikes him that it's one of the first times he's ever claimed them for himself; he decides on the spot that it's yet another vow he fully intends to keep. "I hope they don't love me exactly as you do. Otherwise I'm not sure I have the strength to satisfy them. I'm not a young man, Brienne, and you're a very demanding wife."

She groans and buries her face in his shoulder. "I demand that you stop talking," she mutters, but she's shaking with laughter.

He grins and strokes his hand down the line of her back. And with his wife curled against him and their future stretching before them, even the damned dove outside can't keep him from falling into contented sleep.


End file.
